This invention relates to an improvement in the manufacture of friction clutches of the type employed in automotive vehicles, and more particularly to a method for precisely and rapidly adjusting the inner nose ends of associated clutch release levers.
In the prior art, adjustment of the release levers during assembly of the clutch has presented a continuing problem. Many ingenuous techniques have been employed but most of them have been expensive and cumbersome to carry out. It is well understood by those skilled in the art that release levers in the clutch of an automotive vehicle should have durable inner nose surfaces which lie in a common plane. The release levers will only then engage the release bearing uniformly and simultaneously to insure that the pressure plate is maintained in a plane parallel to the flywheel. Excessive and uneven wear will thereby be eliminated, and the release of the clutch will be efficient and complete.
The variety of methods employed to achieve coplanar operation of the release lever inner nose ends have been unsuitable in the mass production of clutches. Such methods have lacked both economy and convenience. For example, in one instance the outer tail portions have employed adjustable threaded screws with locking jam nuts for use in connection with associated bosses on the back side of the pressure plate. Another method has utilized adjustable rivets, but has required a step of actually checking individual heights of the heads of the rivets with micrometers prior to locking them into final position.
To the extent that such release lever inner nose end adjustments are absolutely essential for proper operation of the clutch assembly, those adjustments have heretofore been necessarily carried out with great care and attendant expense.